The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1933. TO-DAY’S CAUCUS

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 102, 24 January 1933, Page 8

The Dominion. TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 1933. TO-DAY’S CAUCUS

Wheffthe Coalition caucus assembles to-day, it will be : “nf ro with an accomplished fact on the question of exchange probably will be asked to declare on other policy proposals I.wouldbe idle to pretend that the meeting is not a crucial one and no doubt will enter upon it in a responsible spirit. It is not just a question what individually they may or may not think but of the consequence.if they fail to reach a working agreement. Members have probably been impressed in their several districts by the public consternation with which the decision on exchange has been received. Some of them will also have been at pams to discover how deep the reaction has gone and whether the protest is as universal as might appear from scanning the columns of the newspapeis. ia is a point on which they will have their own views but it may be ventured that the suddenness and unexpectedness of the switch-over to the exchange specific partly explains the sharp public reaction. _ Here was an issue people had reasonable grounds for supposing was settled and done with in December. But in January it was revived and from being a twice discarded theory became a fact influencing the daily lives and budgets of everyone. Such a swift change of front is not reassuring. If that has happened, anything may happen, ant people are anxiously asking, What next?. .That condition of. unease, almost of bewilderment, is bad for the individual, and bad for industry and business in general. - Naturally there is resentment against the Government but the same people who are loud in protest might be still less pleased if a political crisis were added to existing perplexities. More than anything else people want certainty or as large, a measure of it as possible. They would not give “anything for a quiet life” but would suffer a good deal for a reasonably settled outlook. That is a viewpoint caucus might well impress on the Government. , / If the country could be assured that, following the enactment o. the new measures Cabinet proposes, there would be a minimum of interference, the announcement would be of the greatest benefit, lhe nation’s economy has been subj’ected to a succession of j'ars and bumps. The public has become nervous and apprehensive. Let there be an undertaking that the latest stoppage for repairs and .readjustments is the last; that the Government, having done as much as (and perhaps more than) it should, intends to stand aside and allow things to work themselves out..

Such an undertaking would be generally welcomed. Ou the other hand no one, however truculently they may talk, really wants politics and policies to go into the melting-pot. The present is no time for an outbreak of faction and political confusion. If the Dominion is to pull herself out of the slough, it cannot be done except by a concerted effort; We shall not obtain complete agreement as to the correct way to climb out but shall only sink further if we stand about and argue. Another point is that so far the country has not been informed as to all of Cabinet’s plans. Exchange manipulation is not the whole of it. Credible report supplies other items, some of which should go in mitigation of higher exchange. Caucus will have the advantage of judging the Government’s policy as a whole. And it is as a whole that members and the country generally should judge it. It should be looked at, moreover, from the standpoint not of any individual section or class, but of the whole nation. At present there is a risk of the chantry being divided into camps. That risk must be avoided. Caucus can set an example and, if the complete programme is reasonably balanced and offers fair hope for the future, the country should range itself behind Parliament. Finally, tranquillity would be the quicker restored, with a settling down to business, if the policy announcement were accompanied by an assurance that, this over, there would in future be the minimum of meedling and interference.